Purpose, Cake-toasts, and Dog-walks; for Joni

Hello. This animal says that a lot. Hello.
Because that is the best way to start. And, most days, we have to start a lot. We start every time we wake up, but also when we sneeze and when we make tea and when we venture outside and when we draw up legal documents or spreadsheets or text messages. Or when we stay in bed.
Hello!
This animal does not have a name yet.
It says hello too often.
So it is difficult to figure out what other kind of name it could have.

It runs. It scavenges the smells and the echoes of all the things you have done and are doing. All the things we want to show each other, to prove, so the other person feels better and instead we go out to dinner. This animal laps up those things and presses its tongue against our hearts.

It looks at the stars until it has wished on all of them, sequentially and with reverence. It likes a small warm drink because it stands outside for hours to do this.

It has extremely good vision. It can see stars of up to magnitude +7

It laps up many things to stay fed. You do not have to feed it. It licks up perspiration and tremors and quavering in your stomach and also cookie crumbs and sweet drinks.

It has antlers. For hanging your coat upon or a blanket or for telling the time in the setting sun or, mostly, for charging the sunrise until it splits wide open for you to rumour fingers along all the crevices and the soft fabrics of each thing you might do that day.

When you go to bed, it will sing very loudly. It will recount the tales of where you have been, with harmonies of the stops you might make along the way to the next animal.